Venus + Eagle dual transit

[Raymond TSE]

Dear all,

The Lunt scope was ordered in early Feb and it arrived in mid May, just in time for angular eclipse & Venus transit. Thanks to David & Savio for the visual testing.
I tried imaging with 5DII at the angular eclipse but the focus was difficult to determine. Further, the QE of 5DII at Ha line is about 5% or lower, not sensitive enough for solar Ha imaging.

I decided to use a new camera to capture the Venus Transit on June 6th 2012 in Ha after the maximum transit but before 3rd contact, when a high flying bird (believed to be an eagle) was also captured flying across the Sun's disc. The dual transit was rare and interesting.

Instead of the very popular false-colour painting (due to use of B/W cameras by many people), I choose a different path by using the CMOS colour version camera to show the more-close to-reality red colour of Ha as perceived by the human eye. The red tone colour is what you would usually see through the eyepiece when you look at a Ha telescope.

The video footage was taken using Raw 16 format and exported by video processing software as a single frame still image, then processed in PS to enhance contrast, sharpness etc and reduced in size for web-posting. This process is much easier & faster without any need for stacking.

Raymond Tse

[社長]

歡迎Raymond在Astrocafe首個帖

看來這次香港愛好者真是大豐收了，只要出動便總會有些好照片。

你的拍攝及後制跟"常規"不同，但結果也是不俗的。我的DMK51借了給David拍這天象，有興趣可以找他一起試試。

說起來也算鬆一口氣，過去大半年Lunt嚴重供不應求，有些去年10月的訂單到今天仍未付運，所以你的LS152T於日環食前安然抵港，要謝天謝地了。

期待更多佳作!

[benben88]

難得一見

[Raymond TSE]

I had once complained to myself on 06-06 morning that the sky was less transparent and less clear than 05-06 (high pressure arriving at Hong Kong from the north) when I tried all different settings for the newly arrived colour camera and when I could figure out where were North/West sides of the Sun. Several pieces of clouds also continually blocked my view on Venus Transit day during the critical moment of 1st contact and intermittenly.

But all in all, most people in Hong Kong enjoyed the millennium sight. I was lucky to see and image the 2004 Venus transit using white light Baader film. This year I was lucky to borrow my friend's rooftop to enjoy the 6.5 hrs free use of electricity, table, chair (to put my desktop with 24 monitor plus a notebook), prior setup the previous night to make reasonable polar alignment for EQ6 Pro. My wife and my elder son joined me in the morning to see this Century event (not possible if I had to go out to TST East or Clear Water Bay). I got most of the video footages for 2nd & 3rd contacts (being processed). I got the Lunt 152 well before these 2 special events. I got the new colour camera just a week before Venus Transit.

By contrast, we only get rain shower this Saturday morning. Very fortunate indeed by all means. Thankful for all conditions coming together at the right time.

Dear Savio,
Thanks for your permission to try out your DMK51. My 3.2M camera chip size is just a bit too small for full FOV of the Sun though I like its 16 bit RBG feature. A bigger chip size would be useful for 900mm focal length. PointGrey has released a new 6.2M camera but this product is not available for purchase yet.

The next event would be Nov 2012 total solar eclipse in Australia.

[David]

This year I was lucky to borrow my friend's rooftop to enjoy the 6.5 hrs free use of electricity, table, chair (to put my desktop with 24 monitor plus a notebook), prior setup the previous night to make reasonable polar alignment for EQ6 Pro. My wife and my elder son joined me in the morning to see this Century event (not possible if I had to go out to TST East or Clear Water Bay). I got most of the video footages for 2nd & 3rd contacts (being processed). I got the Lunt 152 well before these 2 special events. I got the new colour camera just a week before Venus Transit.

Sounds like a great setting for a great show (天時地利人和)! If the event happened in 5-6-2012, it would be more perfect for our pics but would be exceedingly hot. So I feel good enough for what we got on Wednesday.

[Raymond TSE]

Originally I planned to do some timelapse for the 6.5 hrs long transit using Fire Capture (with ToUCam modified with B/W ICX 618) to take short video bursts of 10 sec for every delay of 60 sec.

However, due to the ever increasing cloud coverage, the fixed time interval video burst was not possible at all and I gave up at 8.30 am to return home for breakfast.

When I came back to the setup at 9 am odd, I changed plan to take full video clips whenever the Sun appeared bright enough for Lunt to reveal on computer monitor. Stopped when clouds rolled in. This way, I was stud at the working table and got UV sunbite even I held an unbrella over my head.

If the sky had been very clear with little clouds, then I could let the setup run automatically while I could spare more time to do visual BV observation in baader film using another short-tube scope.

That may be 1 of the reasons why I got the bird-in-flight transit video clip.

Raymond Tse

[社長]

This year I was lucky to borrow my friend's rooftop to enjoy the 6.5 hrs free use of electricity, table, chair (to put my desktop with 24 monitor plus a notebook), prior setup the previous night to make reasonable polar alignment for EQ6 Pro. My wife and my elder son joined me in the morning to see this Century event (not possible if I had to go out to TST East or Clear Water Bay). I got most of the video footages for 2nd & 3rd contacts (being processed). I got the Lunt 152 well before these 2 special events. I got the new colour camera just a week before Venus Transit.

By contrast, we only get rain shower this Saturday morning. Very fortunate indeed by all means. Thankful for all conditions coming together at the right time.

再次證明機會留給有準備的人，相對來說，我在西藏郤有點心不在焉的，所以亦錯失了最寶貴一刻　

Dear Savio,
Thanks for your permission to try out your DMK51. My 3.2M camera chip size is just a bit too small for full FOV of the Sun though I like its 16 bit RBG feature. A bigger chip size would be useful for 900mm focal length. PointGrey has released a new 6.2M camera but this product is not available for purchase yet.

因為相機在David手上，而你倆都在港島，有興趣可以借去玩幾天，最好有時間事後開個帖評評這相機。

[Raymond TSE]

Add the fast-play video of 2nd contact here :-
http://www.raymondtse-lawyer.com/astro/solar/120606-venus-transit/2nd-contact-10x.html

Due to urban light pollution, I could not spot Polaris for most of the previous night until about 4 am odd. Polar alignment of EQ6 Pro was done roughly after I spotted Polaris but alignment was not accurate. Thus the Sun continually drifted to the South during the 6.5 hrs long transit.

There was some vibration of the scope due to strong wind at the roof-top. The intermitten cloud coverage made it difficult to adjust the shutter setting to maintain stable exposure.

The whole transit between 1st and 2nd contact was long (about 18 min). I had a very short glimpse of 1st contact followed by clouds. This video footage was condensed from 7 min 21 sec to 44 sec by playing the video 10x fast.

The Sun's surface in the original raw video is very bright. In order to increase the contrast to reveal the filaments better, I had tunned down the brightness of the Sun's disc.

Raymond Tse

[社長]

nice!

影像有點受制於影色相機，我猜改用黑白相機層次感會好些　

[mwtse]

看到雲層向兩方向移動，那是否錯覺來的？原速的影片也看到嗎？還是因為高低空風向不同？

[Raymond TSE]

看到雲層向兩方向移動，那是否錯覺來的？原速的影片也看到嗎？還是因為高低空風向不同？

Yes, the high thin clouds moved NW to SE, while the thick low clouds moved SW to NE.

I seldom looked up at the sky during the imaging.Just prayed that the clouds should not stick
to my location.

[mwtse]

看到雲層向兩方向移動，那是否錯覺來的？原速的影片也看到嗎？還是因為高低空風向不同？

Yes, the high thin clouds moved NW to SE, while the thick low clouds moved SW to NE.

I seldom looked up at the sky during the imaging.Just prayed that the clouds should not stick
to my location.

So that's an interesting by-product of your video.

[willis]

Good dual transit shot! Wait for ur other Ha images. BTW, I prefer using mono cam. One can use PS to tune the color of final images to mimic the visual view.